Miss Burma

It’s 1941 when Khin, a young, pregnant Karen (one of many ethnic groups in Burma), looks up at the sky to see “at least fifty planes flying in formation toward her—toward them all... like nothing she had ever seen, and yet precisely like what she had been preparing to witness all her life.” The Japanese have invaded, the British hold is slipping fast, and the fragmented worlds from which Khin and her Jewish husband, Benny, have come will continue to fracture for decades. This is the moment at which the war stops being a source of indecision about where to go and becomes instead what forces Khin, Benny, and their daughter Louisa onto an “airless train” without a clear destination. The book itself begins much earlier, as Benny, the son of a rabbi in Rangoon’s Jewish quarter, was growing up in the 1920s before seeing Khin and falling instantly in love with her, despite initially sharing almost no common language. Spanning generations and multiple dictators, Craig’s epic novel provides a rich, complex account of Burma and its place within the larger geopolitical theater. The first half of the book is an undeniable success; the language and the images unfold with grace, horror, and intimacy. The second half, however, becomes weighted down by the history of various corrupt generals and the parties they represent, and it loses the spark and the momentum. (May)